Facts
On December 22, 2010, an accident occurred in Dottikon (AG), in which [D.E.] was struck by two vehicles and fatally injured. The parents and brother of the victim, [A.E.] , [B.E.] , and [C.E.] , filed an appeal in criminal matters and requested that [X.] be found guilty of negligent homicide and punished accordingly. Furthermore, they requested that he be ordered to pay them compensation and damages.
The High Court of the Canton of Aargau dismissed the appeal against the first-instance acquittal of the charge of negligent homicide. The appellants requested that the judgment of the High Court be set aside and [X.] be convicted.
Considerations
The Federal Court examined the appeal and came to the conclusion that the appellants were not entitled to raise the question of whether the death of the victim could have been avoided and attributed to [X.] , as this question had already been decided in the remand decision of January 6, 2017.
The Federal Court also dismissed the appellants' request for recusal, as there was no ground for recusal. Participation in a previous Federal Court proceeding does not in itself constitute a ground for recusal. Nor is it sufficient that the Federal Court, with its remand decisions of May 12, 2015, and January 6, 2017, overturned the convictions of the lower court, remanded the case for retrial, and thus did not rule in favor of the appellants.
The Federal Court also came to the conclusion that the lower court had rightly imposed the costs of the appeal proceedings on the…